Admiral Farragut, as stated in the last chapter, found at the mouth
of the Red River Admiral Porter, with the gunboats _Benton, Lafayette,
Pittsburg_, and _Price_, the ram _Switzerland_, and the tugboat
_Ivy_, with which he had run the batteries of Vicksburg in preparation
for Grant's movement. Porter brought, indeed, no despatches, but
he brought the great news that Grant had secured his landing at
Grand Gulf and had begun his victorious march on Vicksburg. When
Sargent returned to headquarters at Opelousas, he brought with him
a despatch from Porter, promising to meet the army at Alexandria.

Banks had already broken up the depots at Barre's Landing and New
Iberia. On the afternoon of the 4th of May, he set Dwight in motion
from his advance post at Washington. Weitzel marched from Opelousas
at five o'clock the same afternoon, and Emory's division under
Paine followed on the morning of the 5th. Emory, who had been
suffering for some weeks, had at last consented to obey his surgeon's
orders and go to New Orleans for a brief rest. Grover followed
from Barre's Landing early in the afternoon of the same day. Banks
himself remained at Opelousas until early in the morning of the
6th, having waited to receive and answer the translation of the
cipher telegram from Grant; then he rode forward rapidly and joined
his troops near Washington. From this time the communications of
the army were to be by the Atchafalaya and the Red River.

On the 4th of May, while riding to the front to join the advance
commanded by his brother, Captain Howard Dwight, Assistant
Adjutant-General, was surprised and cut off at a sharp turn in the
Bayou Boeuf by a party of armed men on the opposite bank. Having no
reason to apprehend any special danger so far in the rear of the
advance, the little party was proceeding along the road without
precaution. At the moment of the encounter Captain Dwight was
quite alone, concealed by the turn in the road from the ambulance
and the few orderlies that were following at leisure. Armed only
with his sword, and seeing that escape was hopeless, he instantly
declared his readiness to surrender. "Surrender be damned!" cried
the guerillas, and, firing a volley without further parley, shot
him dead. When the orderlies who were with the ambulance heard
the firing they galloped forward, only to find poor Dwight's lifeless
body lying in the dusty road. The murderers had fled.

By this painful event the ser